Trinity
Isa
6:1-7
6/7/20
As we looked around this week, it
was hard to avoid the impression that we are living in troubled times. The pandemic continues to disrupt life as we
live with various restrictions placed by the state governor. Perhaps worse than the virus itself has been
the way it has polarized people with respect to the government and one
another. Certainly the economic
devastation caused by the shut down of stores and businesses only grows.
And then on top of that, we have
seen rioting and looting in the cities of our nation. A cruel act of murder – condemned by all
because it was obviously so unjust – has been used as justification to riot,
loot, beat bystanders and set fire to buildings. And in a bizarre turn of events city
officials have ordered police not to do the very thing Romans chapter 13 says a
government is supposed to do – restrain sin and maintain order.
But troubled times are nothing
new. In fact, in a fallen world they are
always going to be a regular occurrence.
We find evidence of this in our Old Testament lesson for the Feast of
the Holy Trinity. Isaiah begins our text
by saying: “In the year that King Uzziah died.” Uzziah had ruled in the southern kingdom of
Judah for around forty years until his death in 742 B.C. The impact of his death was compounded by the
fact that four years earlier the king of the northern kingdom of Israel,
Jereboam II, had also died. Now normally
that would no big a deal, because the kings in the northern kingdom were
getting killed all the time. But
Jereboam II had also ruled for around forty years. The stability provided by
the long reigns of Uzziah and Jereboam II had created a time of trade and great
prosperity. Things had been really good.
But with the death of Uzziah all of
that stability had come to an end. And
as if the internal uncertainty wasn’t problem enough, anyone paying attention
to the international scene could see that a tremendous threat as coming. Judah and Israel had been able to prosper
because the superpowers on each side of them – Egypt and Assyria - had been
divided and distracted. Yet now the
Assyrian leader Tiglath-pileser III had things on track, and he was looking to
conquer. He had just led a brief
campaign in nearby Syria. There was no
doubt that he would be back with an army that Israel and Judah couldn’t hope to
beat.
It was in the midst of this
situation that Yahweh called Isaiah to be a prophet. Isaiah describes his call in our text today.
He says, “In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting
upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the
temple.” Apparently Isaiah had some kind
of visionary experience in the temple.
He saw Yahweh sitting on a throne. God is often described as sitting on
a throne in the Old Testament because he is the King – he is the ruler of his
entire creation. The exalted character of God is indicated by the fact that he
was high and lifted up, and train of his robe filled the temple.
What was more, Yahweh was attended
by the heavenly host. Six winged seraphim – angels – were above Yahweh. They flew and called out to each other, “Holy,
holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his
glory!” They declared that Yahweh, the
ruler of the heavenly armies, is the most
holy One. There is no one and nothing who can compare with him. Indeed, his glory fills the earth.
Isaiah found himself before the
Creator of the universe. The King was seated on his throne, attended by his
angels who proclaimed the ultimate character of his holiness. And Isaiah tells us that, “the foundations of
the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was
filled with smoke.”
Isaiah was overwhelmed by the
experience. However, we need to pay
attention to why he was overwhelmed.
It was not fear because he the creature was standing in front of God the
Creator. Instead he said, “Woe is
me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the
midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the
LORD of hosts!” What struck Isaiah was his uncleanness – the fact he was not holy.
Standing in the presence of the
holy, holy, holy God – the very most holy God – made Isaiah painfully aware of
his own sinfulness. He knew that he did
not belong there - that he could not be there. This experience of the holy God
in his call certainly made a great impression on Isaiah. Within the Book of Isaiah, the prophet refers
to Yahweh as the “holy One” twenty six times, while this phrase occurs only six
times in all the rest of the Old Testament.
As we hear about Isaiah’s experience
and reaction to it, we must recognize that what he expresses is true for every
one of us. God is holy – the most holy One
– the One who is completely set apart.
We on the other hand are sinners like Isaiah. We are fallen people who have no business
being in the presence of the holy God.
We are people who put own interests before God. We come first, and God
comes second … or maybe sometimes even third.
We are people who embrace anger and hate. We are people who lust and
covet.
Isaiah was completely undone as he
stood before the holy God and perceived his own sin. He said ““Woe is me! For I am lost.” But then Yahweh did something to allow Isaiah
to stand before him. The prophet writes,
“Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he
had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said: ‘Behold,
this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned
for.’”
Today we are celebrating the Feast
of the Holy Trinity. The reason we are celebrating the Holy Trinity – the
reason we know about the Holy Trinity – is because God acted to take away our
guilt and atone for our sin. He acted in
a way that was a fulfillment of all the sacrifice and atonement provided to his
people in the Old Testament.
In the Old Testament there is one
central fact that God reveals about himself.
Moses announced to the people, "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.” Israel knew that Yahweh was one. There was only one true God. The nations around them had many different
gods. But these were all false gods. They were nothing. There was only one true God, Yahweh the Creator of the heavens and the earth.
But in order
to give forgiveness and salvation to all people, God acted in a way that
revealed new knowledge about himself.
St. Paul told the Galatians, “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his
Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who
were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.” When the fullness of time arrived – when the
exact moment in history willed by God was present – God sent forth his Son. He sent forth his Son to be conceived in the
virgin Mary by the work of the Holy Spirit.
The
Father sent the Son to be the atoning sacrifice for sin. And at the moment when
Jesus Christ took on the role of being the suffering Servant – the one who would
be the sin offering for all – the Father, the Son and the Spirit were all
revealed. At his baptism, Jesus the Son stepped into this role. As he did so the Father said, “This is my
beloved Son with whom I am well pleased,” and the Spirit descended upon Jesus
like a dove.
It is the incarnation of the Son of God that
has revealed God’s triune nature to us.
God is one. There is only one
God. Yet we have learned that the Father has sent forth the Son, as he was
incarnate by the work of the Holy Spirit.
Through the incarnation, God has revealed
more about himself. God is one, but
he is not just one. There is a complexity within the unity of God.
The
Father sent the Son to die on the cross as the atoning sacrifice for our
sin. Paul told the Romans that we are “justified by his
grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom
God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received
by faith.”
Jesus
died as the sacrifice for our sins. He
received the judgment we deserved. And then
he was buried. But on the third day, God raised Jesus from the dead. This too was a work of the triune God, for
the Father raised the incarnate Son through the work of the Holy Spirit.
The
Scriptures teach us that there is only one God.
But through the saving action of the incarnation God has revealed that
the one God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
We learn that the Father is true God. The Son is true God. The Holy
Spirit is true God. And yet there is
only One God. God is God, and we are not. The how of this blows our minds. As
St. Paul exclaims in the epistle lesson, “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and
knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable
his ways!”
And
while we certainly cannot understand the how of the Holy Trinity, we must never
lost sight of why we know about
it. We know about the Trinity because of
God’s love for us. God’s action to
save us through Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God, has revealed the triune
nature of God. Our knowledge of the
Trinity bears witness to God’s love for us.
The
apostle John wrote, “In this the love of God was made manifest among us,
that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through
him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he
loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”
God
loved us and acted to give us forgiveness and salvation. That’s why we know
about the Holy Trinity. That’s what the Holy Trinity tells us about God. And as
the children of God, this love can’t stop there. John goes on to say, “Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to
love one another.” The love of God revealed in the Trinity has been given to us
through the work of the Spirit. And now the Spirit prompts us live and act in
love towards one another.
God’s
saving love in Christ has been given to all
people – including you. And so now this love of God that we share is also
directed towards all people. Our actions prompted by God’s love have no
limitations or boundaries – neither the color of a person’s skin nor their
economic status. In fact, this love is
not even limited by whether others are nice to us. For the Lord Jesus said, “Love your enemies
and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your
Father who is in heaven.”
On this Feast
of the Holy Trinity we ponder the mystery of our one God who is three persons –
Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Yet while we cannot understand how God is three and one and the same
time, there is no doubt about why we
have this knowledge. It is because of God’s love for us. It was love that
prompted the Father to send forth the Son to be incarnate by the work of the
Holy Spirit. It was love the led Jesus Christ to offer himself as the sacrifice
to give us forgiveness and salvation. It
was love that caused the Father to raise up Jesus through the work of the
Spirit, and begin the resurrection that will be ours on the Last Day. And it is God’s love that has now been poured
out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us – love
that we share with others through what we do and say.
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